Survey Says Drivers Don’t Trust Autonomous Parking Features

At a breakneck pace, today’s new cars are becoming more and more like four-wheeled smart phones. The trove of technology they offer covers everything from mobile hot-spot connectivity to collision avoidance systems. But a new AAA study finds an interesting trend. Many drivers don’t use or trust these features, specifically self-parking systems.
According to the American Automobile Association, around 80 percent of American drivers are wholly confident in their parallel parking skills while only one in four Americans trust the autonomous parking features on new vehicles.
The organization tested the parking performance of human drivers against the self-parking systems, and the results are as follows. Autonomous parking features resulted in 81 percent fewer curb strikes, 47 percent fewer maneuvers (with some systems using only one move), 10 percent quicker parking, and a parking distance 37 percent closer to the curb.
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“While the vast majority of Americans say they would not trust self-parking technology, AAA found these features performed well in tests and warrants consideration of new car buyers,” says John Nielsen, AAA’s managing director of Automotive Engineering and Repair.
The vehicles tested in the autonomous parking experiment included a 2015 Lincoln MKC, 2015 Mercedes-Benz ML400 4Matic, 2015 Cadillac CTS-V, 2015 BMW i3, and a 2015 Jeep Cherokee Limited.
There is one interesting caveat, however. The experiment also found that some of the parking systems left cars too close to the curb, putting wheels and tires in a vulnerable position and open to scratches, dings, and chips.
“AAA recommends that drivers leave six-to-eight inches between the vehicle and the curb when parallel parking,” warned Nielsen. “With some systems leaving as little as a half-inch buffer, AAA urges automakers to increase this distance to prevent vehicle damage.”
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